1. Field
The disclosed and claimed concept pertains generally to methods of providing search results and, more particularly, to methods of providing search results to a handheld electronic device from a server. The disclosed and claimed concept also pertains to systems including a server and a handheld electronic device. The disclosed and claimed concept further pertains to handheld electronic devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many such handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices. Wireless handheld electronic devices are generally intended to be portable, and thus are of a relatively compact configuration in which keys and other input structures often perform multiple functions under certain circumstances or may otherwise have multiple aspects or features assigned thereto. As a practical matter, the keys of a keypad can only be reduced to a certain small size before the keys become relatively unusable. In order to enable text entry, however, a keypad must be capable of entering all twenty-six letters of the Roman alphabet, for instance, as well as appropriate punctuation and other symbols.
One way of providing numerous letters in a small space has been to provide a “reduced keyboard” in which multiple letters, symbols, and/or digits, and the like, are assigned to any given key. For example, a touch-tone telephone includes a reduced keypad by providing twelve keys, of which ten have digits thereon, and of these ten keys eight have Roman letters assigned thereto. For instance, one of the keys includes the digit “2” as well as the letters “A”, “B”, and “C”. Other known reduced keyboards have included other arrangements of keys, letters, symbols, digits, and the like. Since a single actuation of such a key potentially could be intended by the user to refer to any of the letters “A”, “B”, and “C”, and potentially could also be intended to refer to the digit “2”, the input generally is an ambiguous input and is in need of some type of disambiguation or prediction in order to be useful for text entry purposes.
In order to enable a user to make use of the multiple letters, digits, and the like on any given key, numerous keystroke interpretation systems have been provided. For instance, a “multi-tap” system allows a user to substantially unambiguously specify a particular character on a key by pressing the same key a number of times equivalent to the position of the desired character on the key. For example, on the aforementioned telephone key that includes the digit “2” and the letters “ABC”, if the user desires to specify the letter “C”, then the user will press the key four times. While such multi-tap systems have been generally effective for their intended purposes, they nevertheless can require a relatively large number of key inputs compared with the number of characters that ultimately are output. Another example keystroke interpretation system is key chording (similar to musical multi-key chords), of which various types exist. For instance, a particular character can be entered by pressing two keys in succession or by pressing and holding a first key while pressing a second key. Still another keystroke interpretation system is a “press-and-hold/press-and-release” interpretation function in which a given key provides a first result if the key is pressed and immediately released, and provides a second result if the key is pressed and held for a short period of time.
Another keystroke interpretation system that has been employed is a software-based text disambiguation function. In such a system, a user typically presses keys to which one or more characters have been assigned, generally pressing each key one time for each desired letter, and the disambiguation software infers the intended input. Numerous different systems have been proposed. See, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2006/0007120 and 2006/0007121; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,953,541. For example, as a user enters keystrokes, the device provides output in the form of a default output and a number of variants from which a user can choose. The output is based largely upon the previously recorded input frequency of the text, i.e., the likelihood that a user intended a particular output, but various features of the device provide additional variants that are not based solely on frequency and rather are provided by various logic structures resident on the device. The device enables editing during text entry and also provides a learning function that allows the disambiguation function to adapt to provide a customized experience for the user. Additionally, the device can facilitate the selection of variants by displaying a graphic of a special <NEXT> key of the keypad that enables a user to progressively select variants generally without changing the position of the user's hands on the device.
In an e-mail system, when performing a global address lookup (GAL) (over the air) (or “Lookup”) through a remote server on a full QWERTY handheld electronic device, this GAL lookup maintains the same type of usability as a lookup that is performed locally on the device (i.e., search for contacts that are stored locally on the device). Specifically, if the user types “T P” in an address lookup, then all locally stored contacts that have search results (e.g., text matches) beginning with “T” or “P” are displayed. Some examples of local contacts that would be displayed are “Trevor Plestid, RIM”, or “Pat Travino, Bell”, or “<no name>, Trans Panama Airlines”. If the user, instead, performs an over the air GAL lookup, then the search results are constrained to first name and last name in any order in known implementations.
On a handheld electronic device that provides, for example, SureType™ disambiguation (e.g., as disclosed by U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2006/0007120 and 2006/0007121, which are incorporated by reference herein), the example rendered user interface (UT) output “T P” is provided by the device software when providing a local address lookup. For an over the air GAL lookup, if the user types “T/Y and O/P” on a SureType™ keyboard, and if the combination “T P” is rendered to the UT by the local device software, then the behavior is analogous to the above example of “T P” for local contacts, but the search results will yield any combination of “T/Y” and “O/P”. That is to say, the device software is structured such that there is searching for the other possible combinations, such as “T O”, “Y O” and “Y P” stored in local contacts, regardless that the UT output provided is shown as “T P”. Hence, the user may see additional search results. While the device software selects the specific characters to render to the display, the device local contact search results that are brought up will display all possible combinations regardless of the actual letters that the device software rendered.
There is room for improvement in methods of providing search results to a handheld electronic device from a server.
There is also room for improvement in systems including a server and a handheld electronic device.
There is further room for improvement in handheld electronic devices.